UEA Goldman Sachs connection

This is an attempt to get an Instalanche, so he will probably ignore it just to make the point that he doesn’t do Instalanches for anything that flat out asks for it. Although, on the other hand …

Either way, two recent objects of linkage at Instapundit in recent times have been Climategate and Goldman Sachs. Well, this Climategate email, spotted by Bishop Hill commenter “GS” (3:27pm), concerns Goldman Sachs, so the Prof ought at least to be interested:

We (Mike H) have done a modest amount of work on degree-days for G-S. They now want to extend this. They are involved in dealing in the developing
energy futures market.

G-S is the sort of company that we might be looking for a ‘strategic alliance’ with. I suggest the four of us meet with ?? (forgotten his name) for an hour on the afternoon of Friday 12 June (best guess for Phil & Jean – he needs a date from us). Thanks.

Trevor

Instapundit has also long been interested by the BBC, as a phenomenon of more than local interest. So I would also recommend to him, and to people generally, a read through of the Bishop Hill comment two down from that one above, this time from “ThinkingScientist” (3:41pm). He copies and pastes an email from a BBC Producer to Keith Briffa, about how Briffa must “prove” (the BBC Producer’s inverted commas) in a BBC TV show that there is something very extreme about the supposed current warming spurt. In other words, Briffa must put the C (for catastrophic) in CAGW.

GW for global warming has clearly been happening, although it is not nearly so clear that it is still happening now. (Anyone who denies the second is routinely accused of denying the first.) A for anthropogenic GW is widely believed in, but its scale and even existence are matters of fierce controversy. It’s that C for catastrophic on the front of AGW that this is all about. For a power grab this big, there has to be a C in there.

LATER: And, we have our Instalanche. Many thanks sir. (And thanks to the commenter who corrected my earlier wrong spelling of Instalanche.)

12 comments to UEA Goldman Sachs connection

It seems certain that there is some non-zero A, given all that CO2 released, and the demonstrated ability of CO2 to retain heat.

What is not at all certain is that the A factor is remotely significant, let alone catastrophic.

(In other words, I think A – in the most literal, and also least meaningful sense – is a given, but the form of A people “widely believe in” is not remotely well-supported by evidence.*)

* And thus while denying A is not literally-and-scientifically quite accurate, it’s decently acceptable in the vernacular because what’s really being denied is significant and relevant A, not any-old-A.

Yes, I am coming to see the significance of this second lot of emails not so much as further proof of the dodginess of the UEA scientists, although they are that, but as leading on to the attack on all the various other dodgy institutions who conspired with them to foist this giant con on the world. Such dodgy institutions as: the British Government.

According to NASA, 168 billion metric tons (BMT) of CO2 are released into the atmosphere annually. 100 BMT are contributed by warming oceans. 30 BMT each are the results of respiration and decaying biomass. 1 BMT comes from forest fires, half caused by humans. Industries including distillation, wine making, baking leavened bread and smelting release a total of 1 BMT. The remaining 6 BMT are due to fossil fuel. If humans were eliminated, 168 BMT would only decrease by 7.5 BMT.

CO2 is a naturally occurring trace gas, essential to life on Earth.

In an interview with the Wisconsin Energy Cooperative Newsletter, the late Professor Reid Bryson, the father of climate science, related the following which I have paraphrased.

As for the effects of green house gasses, in the first 30 feet above the surface, 80% of reflected solar energy is absorbed by water vapor. CO2 absorbs 0.08%. H2O is 1000 times more effective than CO2. You can go outside and spit and have more effect on warming that doubling the level of CO2.

Many investment banks have an interest in trading new (and therefore richly priced) risks, especially those that are less correlated with financial markets.

So nothing sinister about weather derivatives, UNLESS it is part of crony-capitalist manipulation. So if you sell a wind-velocity hedge to an electric turbine investor, or rain cover to a farm, fine. But if you trade carbon credits made artificially scarce by political fiat, then shame. The former of course is hard work, and of no interest to Goldman.

Having read Michael Lewis’s book, the Big Short, which among other things recounts the exploits of Goldman Sachs in selling and profiting from the crappy sub-prime debt that was part of the recent financial disaster, and then watch as it got bailed out, I can only groan at the thought that that institution is a part of the AGW scam as well.

Truly, it would gladden my bleak, “Austrian” heart if Goldman had failed.

Goldman Sachs – the Chicago Climate Exchange (all about how to make money from the “Carbon Trading” scam).

Comrade Barack (and others) in his Community Organizer days actually set up the Exchange (with money they took from private charitable trusts – mostly, to the great amusement of the Conrades, set up by dead Republicans).

However, Goldman Sachs moved in quickly – as they always do with a scam. Just as my dear friends at the Economist magazine tend to be very quick to write articles that refer (either as the main feature of the article – or in passing), in positive terms, to the latest fashionable scams.

Although Goldman Sachs were not the first major corporation to try and make money out of the “Carbon Trading” scam.

Who Are We?

The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.